In The dream house (2025), Stefan Nikolaev brings together the immediacy of a luminous image with the material presence of sculpture. A single bird is traced in Murano glass neon, its body reduced to a continuous line that reads almost as a drawing made in light. Around it, hammered and patinated copper forms an irregular pictorial field, crossed by bronze branches that extend the image into physical space.

The work belongs to Nikolaev’s recent exploration of images that move between painting, relief, sculpture and illuminated sign. The distinction between representation and object remains deliberately unsettled. The bird exists as a luminous image, while the branches acquire weight and volume; neon emits light, while the copper surface absorbs and reflects it. A familiar natural motif is thus reconstructed through materials associated with sculpture, craft and signage. Recognition is immediate, yet the physical construction of the work complicates the image, shifting attention from what is represented to how it is made and encountered.